By David Gold
December 27 – Olympique Lyonnais President, Jean-Michel Aulas, wants the club’s new stadium to host the opening game of the 2016 European Championships in France.
The Stade des Lumières will replace the current Stade Gerland that the seven-times French champions currently play in.
“Discussions with UEFA are very advanced and favourable concerning the organisation at Lyon of the opening game of Euro 2016,” Aulas said.
The 60,000 seater stadium is on course to be finished by 2014 and Aulas’ comments follow on from those of Gérard Collomb, the mayor of Lyon, who stated earlier this year that he wants the ground to host the tournament opener.
Other venues which could host the opening game could include the stadium of the current champions, Lille – the Grand Stade – which they will move into next season.
It will have a capacity of 50,283, which means it would meet UEFA’s requirement for a stadium hosting the opening game of a European Championship to hold at least 50,000 spectators.
Paris’s Stade de France, which can hold 80,000 fans and in which France won their first and only World Cup to date in 1998, would be another option.
Euro 2016 will be the first time that the European Championships has 24 competitors, rather than the 16 who will battle it out for the Henri Delaunay trophy in Ukraine and Poland next summer – the last time the competition is held in its current format.
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